summer blizzard

I recall somebody asking why places like the east USA can get 'nor-easters' which produce in excess of a foot and RJS commenting that it was the warm tropical sea and cold dry air. Well its gone unnoticed but we have an example of that over northern Italy from our low on Sunday with over a foot forecast..

Hard to tell but it looks like sleet in Manhattan at the moment.

GFS6z goes for snow. Precipitation looks medium.

GFS goes for rain.

I suspect things will be further west but i don't think a major cold spell is on the way.

I recall in June 2005 i think that a Tesco Express which always had the heat high i went into on a warm night and when i walked back out i had not realized just how warm it was outside because i walked back out and it was like a hairdrier. I never have a problem with cool evenings so i don't mind. August 2003 was horrific, it was 23C one night in London.

Horrid, can't stand humidity. From March-August i actually like the sunny, dry monotonous warmth.

0z GFS looks another dry, sunny and chilly run.

Tut, your late.

Several years in the past have seen slow declines to near average, this looks similar to recent warm springs where the stratosphere does a nose dive.

Essentially it indicates stratospheric cooling in the upper atmosphere which may prompt a tropospheric response. The warm April's of 2009 and 2011 along with March 2012 both saw similar stratospheric conditions beforehand. It's no guarantee but if the rest of the stratosphere follows suit then it's likely that a warmer pattern could prevail. Of course we could go for gold and end up with a high on top of us.

Increase my prediction to 3.9C please, just 0.5C below average. I think the last third of the month could blowtorch.

Geronimo......... Warmer than average March? Odds may be increasing!

For the past week the GFS has said wall to wall sunshine this afternoon.. it's just stopped raining!

It was a setup that was pretty dominant from Nov 04 to mid Feb 05 (evolved into an easterly), the high just kind of sat to the south west occasionally ridging north. Personally i wouldn't expect anything more than frost from it, pressure is fairly high and the northerly component will promote the wishbone effect. Also of note is that it does reach 1045mb so its pretty strong.

Looks like the end of the week should see high pressure close to the south west which i suggest may not be bad for us in Yorkshire because the Pennines should deal with some of the cloud and so i'd expect spells of sunshine and a reasonable 5-10C.

Good to see good run to run consistency between the 18z and 0z in the high resolution time-frame. Looks like Feb 2nd could be a good snow opportunity for England.

If we can get a correction to 3.4C that will do me.

Speaking for Leeds i think that this winter will be remembered pretty well, at my parents we are now going into day 15 of partial snow cover. With that being said the last five winters have featured notable cold spells with snow cover so i may be easy to please (09 - 16 days, 10 - 31 days, Dec 10 - 25 days, 12 - 8 days, 13 - 15> days).

Okay so we don't really know what the ENSO will do this summer but based on increasingly westerlies and warm sub-surface temperatures to the west i think we will see an ENSO neutral-weak El Nino type setup along with a positive QBO so taking the summer season with years matching these we get... qbo 1980 1985 1990 1995 1997 1999 2002 2004 2006 2008 MEI 1951 1953 1958 1969 1976 1977 1979 1980 1986 1990 1994 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2009 2012 A mixed bag but we know that 1990 and 2006 were notable in July and with 1976, 2003 and 1995 as weaker analogues that certainly springs my ears up, though there are probably some horror shows in there too.

2008 is certainly a probable QBO match however so are many others that were warmer, i shall have a look through the data.

I'd note that stratospheric temperatures at 10hpa are already plunging so the prospect of a warmer than average March in my opinion is high.

Some less rosy news with a large disparity between the upper and mid stratosphere taking place.

GP, whilst not strictly strat related i was curious whether such westerly bursts are likely to arrest the development of the cold sea surface temperature anomolies in the Pacific and potentially lead us towards a weak El Nino through the coming months?

It is the likely outcome in my opinion given the SSW which favours Atlantic High's but the position of the vortex which is still strong to the west. It was actually a dominant pattern from November through to Mid-January 2005 so it can stick around but the advantage is that it is a very dry pattern and the later in the season we get the sunnier it may be. Given that stratospheric temperatures are still well above average i wouldn't be surprised to see a retrogression either.